M3S vs. Protege electrical

[garboui]

A buddy of mine has recently installed a sub in his 2003 protege after hering my setup. each setup id fairly similar with 400wrms amps and 4awg wiring.

in my car i can be in park idling and have it cranked on the stereo and on the remite gain ans i get no dimming at all. in his car at idle at moderate volumes he gets a significant amount of dimming and even more when he cranks it up more. even bringing his engine rpm's up theres very little noticeable improovement.

could this just be that the protege's have a weaker alt compared to the 3's?

im thinking of putting in a cap for him but because of the relatively small size of amp that he is running i still dont think that it will make too much difference for dimming. my other thought is that because he has run his battery flat before that his battery may have buily up a significant amount of internal resistance so it creates a large voltage drop when more current is demanded form it.

[Gizzmo_jr]

Did you beef up the chassis to battery ground?

[garboui]

no, that hasent been tried yet, ill tell him to start off with that first though.

[midnightfxgt]

400W RMS... I doubt a cap will do much since that is not much power at all. I would look at grounds first, and clean connections in power. A good rule of thumb is to make sure your ground is a least as large as your power wire. Also, the shorter the better!

A good point on caps from another forum:

"Capacitors (caps) are a good thing - if they're used correctly. When added to an electrical system that can keep up, they provide the extra on-demand power a big amplifier craves. However, if the electrical system is already lagging, a cap helps until it's discharged, then it becomes one more thing for the already overworked charging system to keep up with. Once drained, a capacitor becomes a point of resistance in the system untill it is able to regain a voltage equal to or greater than that demanded "down stream", as it were. Since caps drain very quickly, and the demand that drained them in the first place will draw the current it wants with or without the cap, they do not recharge until the demand drops."

Good Luck Jay

-John

[garboui]

thanks, im gonna start with replacing his engine to chasis and battery gnd to chassis with some 2awg.